


His Favorite Smile

by noodlecatposts



Series: ACOTAR AU Week 2019 [1]
Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-09
Updated: 2019-12-09
Packaged: 2021-02-26 23:27:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21737455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noodlecatposts/pseuds/noodlecatposts
Summary: They did this often, meet here for lunch, as a quick reprieve in the middle of a busy week, but today was different—today was special.Or, Rhys meets Feyre for coffee at their usual spot.Posted in participated with ACOTAR AU Week, Day 1: Coffee Shop AU.
Relationships: Feyre Archeron & Rhysand, Feyre Archeron/Rhysand
Series: ACOTAR AU Week 2019 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1568818
Comments: 7
Kudos: 105
Collections: ACOTAR AU Week, ACOTAR AU Week Day 1





	His Favorite Smile

Rhys was nervous. He couldn’t stop bouncing his leg, tapping his fingers on every available surface; he’d had to make himself stop picking apart the coffee sleeve on his cup, didn’t want to give himself away to Feyre. Rhys didn’t want her to be suspicious; he wanted her to be surprised.

Excited, too, or at least he hoped she would be.

Rhys’s head snaps up at the sound of the bells chiming gently and merrily against the coffee shop door. Feyre’s grey-blue eyes, almost more familiar to him than his own, scan the place, looking for him. He waits for her to spot him; happy smile plastered on his face at the sight of his favorite person in this world.

The shop is busy, but it doesn’t take Feyre long to spy him, tucked away into their favorite corner. They come here often enough to know where to find one another. It’s their place; it’s where they met.

His girlfriend’s eyes meet his own, and Feyre smiles bright enough to light up the whole café. Rhys’s heart still lurches at the sight of that smile.

He’s been waiting a while for her, but Feyre is right on time, as always. It’s Rhys that got here too early, that rushed here from his morning meeting too quickly. His nerves were getting the better of him, making him antsy and unfocused. All he could think about was Feyre and their little midday date.

They did this often, meet here for lunch, as a quick reprieve in the middle of a busy week, but today was different—today was special.

“You’re early!” Feyre’s voice lilts with teasing, shuffling through the shop with an arm full of shopping bags. Rhys grimaces when he attempts to scowl at her; his face has forgotten how to work, he's so filled with nerves. He’s always impeccably late, for anything. Feyre says that’s why Rhys went into work for himself, taking over the family company after years of insisting it wasn’t what he wanted. Rhys needed to work for himself; no one else would let him be repeatedly late to work.

His girlfriend raises a brow at his facial expression, but Feyre doesn’t pry. She knows that whatever is bothering him will come out eventually, but not before Rhys is ready to. He likes that about their relationship, the quiet understanding. Rhys has had relationships in the past where they would try to pry the answers out of one another, insist on explanations; it never ended well.

But he can tell Feyre is worried, that his behavior has her concerned. She wants to ask, but she won't.

“Yeah, well,” Rhys searches for a reason for his timeliness. _I’m kind of freaking out; so, I canceled the meeting halfway through it and ran across town to sit here, alone and panicking, and drink obscene amounts of coffee to not calm my nerves_ didn’t seem like the right response.

“Meeting ended early,” Rhys shrugs. He summons that teasing arrogance that always gets him into trouble. “All the more time to spend with you, Feyre Darling.”

Feyre smiles sweetly at the name, such a change from when they first met. Rhys can still remember a time when calling her darling would earn him nothing but a scoff; eventually, he upgraded into an eye roll. Now Feyre always smiles that favorite smile of his, soft and sweet—and in love.

Rhys coined the nickname as a way of coping; it was a little, small thing to allow him the ability to express his feelings—without having to actually show his emotions. Was it healthy? No, but it worked.

Feyre frowns. “You should have told me you got out early. I would have met you here sooner.”

Rhys smiles and reaches across the table to take her hand, but he reconsiders, afraid that his clammy palms will give him away. Feyre’s face falters, surprised at his withdrawal from contact; he is a champion of casual, public affection. Rhys changes the topic quickly.

“And what have you been up to today, darling?” Rhys’s smile is probably crazed. He’s afraid to look into the glass of the window beside them and see his harried expression look back at him.

“Uh,” Feyre begins thoughtfully, running her hand through her hair and fluffing the curls. “I was doing some Christmas shopping. I’m trying not to leave it until the last minute.”

No, that was Rhys’s job. He was a certified procrastinator.

Rhys leans over the table, tugs at one of the bags. “Get me anything special? Something lacey and blue, perhaps.”

Feyre snatches the bags away from his prying eyes, making him chuckle. She glares at him, but the slight flush on her cheeks gives her away. Rhys’s grin turns feline.

“Don’t be silly,” Feyre retorts, fire in her eyes. “You’ll look much better in red. Better suits your skin tone.”

Rhys chokes on the sip of coffee in his mouth, and Feyre breaks into bright peals laughter. She’ll be the death of him one day. His girlfriend eyes his coffee with envy.

“I’m going to go get myself some cocoa,” Feyre tells him. She points one tapered finger at him in warning, and Rhys snaps his teeth at her, pretends to bite it, teasing. “No snooping, Rhysand.”

He holds up three fingers. “Scouts honor.”

“I imagine you were a terrible boy scout, Rhysand _Archeron_ ,” Feyre teases. She ruffles his hair once, quickly, and walks away from the table to order her drink.

Feyre’s words leave him in shambles. It’s a game they’ve begun as of late, calling each other by the other’s last name. Saying _Feyre Knight_ has become his favorite pastime. There’s a silly, old fashioned part of him that hopes she’ll agree to take his last name eventually; hell, he’d be happy with a hyphenation. Feyre Archeron-Knight. Or Knight-Archeron.

He hoped eventually was sooner rather than later.

Rhys leans back towards the bags, clutching the small box in his coat pocket like a lifeline. Or maybe a curse. It doesn’t weigh that much, not really, but the little black box has been traveling in his pocket for weeks now, haunting both his waking hours and his sleeping ones.

Rhys knows Feyre will say yes—but what if she doesn’t?

Someone clears their throat, and Rhys looks up into Feyre’s warning eyes, murder shining within them. He grins, leans back into his chair, and pretends to be indifferent, but Rhys would _really_ like to know what lacey things are hidden in those bags.

“So, I was thinking,” Feyre begins, reclaiming her seat and blowing at the steam rising from her hot chocolate, “that we could all go down to the cabin for the week of Christmas. I know it’s not how you’d prefer to spend our anniversary, but my birthday is then, too. I’d like everyone to be together?”

Rhys knows that she’s seen the way his face has fallen at the suggestion. Christmas is soon, a little over a month, but he was hoping that they might go away together to celebrate—assuming she says yes.

“We don’t have to, of course,” Feyre adds quickly, second-guessing herself. “Sorry, I know it’s not my place to invite myself and everyone else to your family home. I just thought—”

“You know I don’t mind,” Rhys interrupts, taking one of her hands in his own. Feyre frowns, staring hard.

“You don’t?” Feyre sounds unconvinced.

“Of course not, Feyre,” Rhys assures, rubbing his thumb across the back of her hand. “You’re always welcome, and that horrible group of friends of ours, too. I suppose.”

“Are you sure?” Feyre reclaims her hand, leaving his cold. She crosses her arms protectively over herself; she’s uncomfortable with him, Rhys realizes with a jolt. “Because you’ve been acting weird for weeks now.”

“No, I haven’t,” he defends himself too quickly. Rhys’s cheeks flush guiltily. He absolutely has. Ever since he got the ridiculous idea in his head to propose, Rhys has been on edge. He'd like to blame their little teasing game with the last names, but Rhys has been turning the idea over in his mind for months now.

Then Rhys got the ring, pulled it from the family vault, and became an utter mess. He couldn’t resist taking it out at all hours, staring at it, and imagining Feyre wearing it, his mother’s sapphire ring, but Feyre always managed to walk in on him at those exact moments, making him jump with surprise, causing him to fluster as he tried to hide it.

It’s not easy to hide something from someone you live with. All Rhys wanted was to tell his best friend he was planning to propose, but his best friend was sitting across from him at this table, looking like she was about to cry.

“Rhys,” Feyre begins, and her voice is so small that it shatters his heart into a million little pieces of glass. “Do you want to break up with me? Is there,” she sniffles, and Rhys thinks he might die, “someone else?”

Rhys can do nothing but stare at her in shock, speechless at the sudden turn in the conversation. How could Feyre ever think such a thing? But then again, how could she not? From outside of Rhys’s head, it looked like he was pulling away from her; it looked like he _was_ hiding something, someone.

Feyre must take his silence for admission. She sniffles again. “Oh.”

“Wait!” Rhys cries, panicked as Feyre starts to rise from the table. The people at nearby tables stare at him for his outburst. “Feyre, no. No, no, no. Gods, I’ve messed this all up, haven’t I?”

Feyre settles back into her chair, defeated; the expression on her face cuts him to the quick. She remains quiet, waiting.

“Fuck,” Rhys practically slaps himself as he rubs a palm down his face.

“It’s okay, Rhys,” she tells him, reaching for her bags again. “I understand. I think I've been seeing the signs for a while now.”

This is all that blasted ring's fault.

“No, please. Feyre, just a minute,” he scrambles for the little box in his pocket, but his frustration slows him down. Rhys growls in frustration as the box gets caught on the lining; the gods must be punishing him for something he did in another life.

At last, the box comes free of the coat, jumping from Rhys’s hands. It lands onto the table with a _thump._ Feyre blinks at it, then at him.

“I would _never_ bring you here to break up with you, Feyre.” Rhys’s expression is deathly serious. “I would never break up with you at all, my love, but especially not _here_ , not where I first saw you, first made you scoff at me, made you blush.

“And definitely not where I first got you to say yes,” Rhys smiles fondly at the memory, recalling the way her eyes sparkled when he asked her to _get coffee_ with him, the way she whispered _yes,_ shy and uncertain. How she smiled his favorite smile.

“And I was hoping,” Rhys nudges the box closer to Feyre’s side of the table; she eyes it wearily as if it might attack. “That I could get you to say yes, again—a second time.”

“Rhys,” his girlfriend breathes, finally connecting the dots.

“Open it, darling,” Rhys tells her, nudging the box again. He needs her to open it. “I’d get down on one knee if I knew it wouldn’t totally blow my chances at not causing a scene, which I know you hate for these kinds of things.” He winces. “But I’ve kind of already done that, so maybe I'll just—”

“Don’t you dare,” Feyre warns, voice sharp. He smiles and she reaches tentatively for the box. She goes still when she opens it, and Rhys hopes that’s a good sign.

“Will you marry me, Feyre?” He hopes she won’t hold it against him if his usual bravado fails him, and his voice wavers, just a little bit.

She smiles that favorite smile. “Yes.”


End file.
